


the knight and the birdcage

by nishta



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-12
Updated: 2013-01-12
Packaged: 2017-11-25 04:24:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/635079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nishta/pseuds/nishta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even after years of separation, there are still stories you remember.  They allow you, if only for a few brief moments, to forget how far you’ve come, how many mistakes you’ve made—and simply fall back into your old bed, curl up with your big Bro, feel his arms around you and let yourself fall apart, piece by piece, confident that he’ll put you back together again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the knight and the birdcage

**Author's Note:**

> written for the prompt, "a bird cage. must include the sentence, 'and over there is the fiddler, and up there is that one jackass.' " so, naturally, i wrote about striders.

Your clearest memories of Bro are from when you were little—small, small, small, curled tight within yourself after the death of your parents, cradled by Bro and his lanky arms and oversized shirt.  He grew into them, of course; filled them out just like he tried so hard to fill the hole in your chest, and it worked, to an extent, because you were too young to even know what you were missing, what caused the void.  Your ignorance certainly wasn’t bliss, but it paled in comparison to the things you know now.

The death was quick, Bro told you when you were older.  He didn’t sugarcoat it.  He didn’t shield you like he used to.  You asked one day after school, and he sat you down, took off his shades, looked you right in the eye: “Dave, our parents are dead.”  You were only seven years old, and so followed the inevitable _why_ —and so Bro told you.  They died in a car crash.  Nothing fancy, nothing elaborate, nothing shocking.  (It wasn’t until you were ten that Bro told you it was your dad’s fault.)  They’d been cremated, and the ashes went to their respective parents.  Bro didn’t visit their graves, because their grave-markers were overseas, and “Besides,” he told you, “there’s nothing there to visit.”

You don’t remember crying, but you’re pretty sure you did.  There are a lot of nights you don’t remember.  And try as you might, you don’t remember your parents—you were hardly two years old when tragedy struck, and Bro told you they mostly hired a nanny to look after you, anyway.  Bro raised you the rest of the way, hardly seventeen but he didn’t trust any of your relatives, and lying came easier, he said.  You spent your nights at a dingy apartment your days at anyone who would take you—you had friends, you think, because you don’t know how else Bro would’ve been able to keep you out of the house so much.  You don’t remember the days, and you’re not sure why, but you think it’s because they didn’t matter, not really.

It was the nights you spent with your Bro.

He’d put you to bed with a bottle of apple juice, make sure your blankets were still soft and warm, even after years and years of wear, years spent swaddled around unknown owners.  He made it a rule to never wear his shades or his hat in your room, either.  Said it was disrespectful to his lil bro, his _kiddo_ , hiding his face from you like that.

Sometimes he’d climb into bed with you, too.  It got rarer and rarer as you got older, but sometimes he’d still crawl in with you, pull you right up to his broad chest and murmur stories to you.  Now that you think about it, you guess it was more for his comfort than for yours, but it’s nights like those that you remember clearest.

You remember thinking that his words were even warmer than his body—they melted off of his tongue and sang in the air around you, curled up to you and kept you safe at night with tales of fantastic journeys and of unlikely victories.  They were almost like dreams, amazing and illogical and heartwarming, sometimes even awe-inspiring to your six- or seven-year-old self.  You still wonder how he came up with all of them, but then again, there’s a lot you don’t understand about Bro.

Even after years of separation, there are still stories you remember; they catch you in a strange sort of paradox, drawing tears from your eyes no matter when you recite them quietly to yourself, and yet you often use them to staunch to flow when you find yourself shaking in the corner of your room.  You remind yourself, every time, without fail, without a missing beat or breath, that they’re stupid, illogical, silly, meant to cater to a whims of a stupid, illogical, silly kid, but they ease the frantic beating of your heart when you need them most.  They allow you, if only for a few brief moments, to forget how far you’ve come, how many mistakes you’ve made—and simply fall back into your old bed, curl up with your big Bro, feel his arms around you and let yourself fall apart, piece by piece, confident that he’ll put you back together again.

There’s one story in particular that you’ve got folded neatly in the back of your mind, reserved for emergencies and the occasional press of a psychotic break.  Bro called it “The Knight in the Birdcage,” and it was one of the last stories he told you.  You were twelve, you think, but you suppose it doesn’t really matter.

You remember calling him a liar once he started the story, because he always came up with the titles first, and “Bro, there isn’t a knight _or_ a birdcage in this story, is there!” you’d cried indignantly, and he’d just laughed against your hair.

“Slow down, kiddo, you’ll ruin the story,” he said, and you’d settled with a huff, arms trying to cross even while you were lying on your side.

“Fine,” you’d said, and he’d laughed again before clearing his throat, adopting that old storyteller voice he liked to use.

“Once upon a time,” he started again, because that was, _ironically_ , always how he started his stories, “there lived a great queen in a far away kingdom.  I say she was great, but I’m mostly talking about her tits.  She was actually a bitch.”  You laugh and elbow him in the chest, only to have him shush you.  “But listen, in her castle, she kept all sorts of gold and other treasures, and among those there was a sword that could kill anything.”

“Anything?” you’d gasped, suspicious but eager.

“Anything,” Bro said.  “With a single swipe.”

“Wow.”

“Sure thing, kiddo,” Bro said.  “It was real fancy, too.  Not just gold or silver or steel, but covered and carved with jewels of every color, bathed in rhinestones and sparkle—this queen thought everything was better with a little glitter, you see.”  You nodded, because you understood.  “I’d call her sneaky, but really she just had good taste.  See, with the sword so decked out, no one actually believed it was _the_ sword.  Because that’s how people think.  If something’s pretty, it can’t be serious, huh?  They all mockingly called it The Sord, because to them that was really funny.”

“Bro,” you said flatly, “that’s the same as sword.  Why did they call it the exact same thing?”

“Silly Dave,” Bro said, sighing in mock disappointment.  “Not _sword_ , kiddo—” the _w_ was emphasized, a strange twist of breath—“ _sord_.  S-O-R-D.”

“Oh,” you said, and Bro nodded, chin bumping against the crown of your head.

“But there was a darkness rising in the land, see, and people were crying for _the_ sword, the sword to smite the shadows as they grew in their homes.  The queen obliged, of course, offering up _the_ sword, but the people refused, because the sword she offered was so hideously bedazzled and sparkly.  They planned a revolt, eager to seize the castle and capture the queen and the _real_ sword, _the_ sword, because that is what people do when they’re upset.  Now, let me skip the delicacies and skip to the end—”

“Bro!”

“—because the revolt isn’t important.  It’s the queen and her sword that is.  _Hush_ , Davey.”

You huffed in his arms, pouting because you wanted to hear about the battle and all of its romance and glory.  But you backed down, because you trusted your Bro, and you still wanted to know how the story ended.

“Now, are we done being petulant?” Bro asked, pulling back to look you in the eye, chin tucked against his neck.  You nodded, and Bro affirmed his appeasement by placing a gentle kiss on your forehead.  “Good,” he said.  “Now, the queen won the battle, because she was the queen, and she had the sword.  The people bowed before her in their petty ignorance and she stood before them, sword in hand— _sord_ in hand—and cocked her hips, brushing her hair away from her face.  ‘Fools,’ she said, because that is what kings and queens say, ‘why have you betrayed me?’  Getting no answer, she said, ‘Fine,’ and drew the Sord, brandishing it before her people.  ‘You’ve got three choices.’  The mass before her looked up with fear in their eyes, because they had just realized how stupid they were, if only because they were faced with death.”

“Death is scary, Bro,” you said, and Bro sighed.

“I know, kiddo.  But the answer to fear isn’t anger.”

You didn’t get it at the time, and you’re still not sure you do—but you’ve been faced with your own dose of fear, enough to poison the air you breathe and the blood that keeps your body upright, and his words still echo in your ears.

“Now,” Bro said, clearing his throat again.  “The queen carefully outlined the ‘choices.’ ‘I’m giving you three people, and you will ask me to spare one.  But here’s the twist—I think I’ll only ask one person.’  The queen knelt down before one young man, caught his chin in her hand, forced him to look at her.  She smiled.  ‘You there, sir,’ she said.  ‘I think you’ll be the one to decide.’  She stood, pulling the man up with her.  ‘Now,’ she said, ‘Here are your choices: You can live, or the fiddler can, or that once jackass—your _leader_ , as I’ve been told—can.  Who will it be?’ ”

“But, Bro,” you said, “that’s such a silly question, he’s obviously going to pick himself!”

“Shh,” Bro told you.  “You’re right.  The man pointed to himself, eyes wide with fear, and the queen nodded.  So she drew her sword and killed him.”

“What?”

“ _Shh_.  The queen’s Sord cleaved him right in two, blood spilling before her feet and into the crowd beneath her.  ‘Who’s next?’ she asked, and the crowd gave an uproar, outraged at her own betrayal.  ‘You liar!’ they screamed; ‘It was rigged all along!’  The queen smiled.  ‘Of course it was,’ she said, ‘that’s the way it works.  If you can’t trust me to be _competent_ in my own work, how I can I trust you to be competent in yours?’  Of course, nobody liked this line of reasoning, so the queen just sighed and said, ‘Congratulations, this is the sword you’ve been looking for.’  Nobody believed that either, so she shrugged and went back inside.  Soon the kingdom was swallowed by a great darkness, and she ruled over that darkness with the same smile.”

It took a minute for the ending to sink in, and once it did, you still weren’t sure what to do with it.  “What happened to the happy ending?” you asked, and Bro chuckled.

“It did have a happy ending, though,” he said.  “The queen was happy, wasn’t she?”

“Yeah, but—”

“ _But_ ,” Bro cuts you off, “that’s the way things go, isn’t it, Davey?  Just make your own decisions and hope you have a happy ending.”  But his voice grows quiet, and you feel a sigh against your forehead, breath hot and not so soothing anymore.  “And if you don’t, just hope someone else does.”

You took the message to heart, but you didn’t know what it meant.  You still don’t.  You’d fallen asleep that night with a heavy confusion, because your bro was supposed to make you feel better, safer, not uncomfortable.  All of his other stories were happy, silly, about magical horses and wizardry, about robots built with a heart.  You didn’t get it.

You don’t get it now, either.  But sometimes you wonder if he knew.  Something about Bro always unnerved you, and now you wonder if some part of you knew that he wasn’t like the others.  That his brain didn’t work the same way.  That maybe, just maybe, he knew you would turn out to be the same way, and that you would meet the same sickening end.

Sometimes you wonder if your family’s cursed.  You wonder so much that it less of a thought and more of a fact, a _law_ , and it sits rooted deep in your mind that as a reminder that you’ll get what’s coming for you.  After all, you are just a knight in a birdcage—on display for all to see, for all to croon and poke at, to giggle over, but locked safe behind golden bars.

Of course, _safe_ is a relative term, and it only serves to remind you that you aren’t going to last much longer.


End file.
